Awaken your inner geek

Warning! Linux Mint – Multiple hacks.

by admin on February 21, 2016

The Linux Mint blog announces that the project’s web site was compromised and made to point to a backdoored version of the distribution. It is advised that if you did download an ISO on the 20th, then you avoid using it.

If you are a forum user it is advised that you change your passwords, especially if it is a shared password on other sites.

The following information was posted on the Linux Mint blog with regards to hacked ISOs:

Beware of hacked ISOs if you downloaded Linux Mint on February 20th!

I’m sorry I have to come with bad news.

We were exposed to an intrusion today. It was brief and it shouldn’t impact many people, but if it impacts you, it’s very important you read the information below.

What happened?

Hackers made a modified Linux Mint ISO, with a backdoor in it, and managed to hack our website to point to it.

Does this affect you?

As far as we know, the only compromised edition was Linux Mint 17.3 Cinnamon edition.

If you downloaded another release or another edition, this does not affect you. If you downloaded via torrents or via a direct HTTP link, this doesn’t affect you either.

Finally, the situation happened today, so it should only impact people who downloaded this edition on February 20th.

How to check if your ISO is compromised?

If you still have the ISO file, check its MD5 signature with the command “md5sum yourfile.iso” (where yourfile.iso is the name of the ISO).

The valid signatures are below:

6e7f7e03500747c6c3bfece2c9c8394f linuxmint-17.3-cinnamon-32bit.iso
e71a2aad8b58605e906dbea444dc4983 linuxmint-17.3-cinnamon-64bit.iso
30fef1aa1134c5f3778c77c4417f7238 linuxmint-17.3-cinnamon-nocodecs-32bit.iso
3406350a87c201cdca0927b1bc7c2ccd linuxmint-17.3-cinnamon-nocodecs-64bit.iso
df38af96e99726bb0a1ef3e5cd47563d linuxmint-17.3-cinnamon-oem-64bit.iso
If you still have the burnt DVD or USB stick, boot a computer or a virtual machine offline (turn off your router if in doubt) with it and let it load the live session.

Once in the live session, if there is a file in /var/lib/man.cy, then this is an infected ISO.

What to do if you are affected?

Delete the ISO. If you burnt it to DVD, trash the disc. If you burnt it to USB, format the stick.

The hacked ISOs are hosted on 5.104.175.212 and the backdoor connects to absentvodka.com.

Both lead to Sofia, Bulgaria, and the name of 3 people over there. We don’t know their roles in this, but if we ask for an investigation, this is where it will start.

What we don’t know is the motivation behind this attack. If more efforts are made to attack our project and if the goal is to hurt us, we’ll get in touch with authorities and security firms to confront the people behind this.

If you’ve been affected by this, please do let us know.

The following information was posted on the Linux Mint blog with regards to the compromised databases:

All forums users should change their passwords.
It was confirmed that the forums database was compromised during the attack led against us yesterday and that the attackers acquired a copy of it. If you have an account on forums.linuxmint.com, please change your password on all sensitive websites as soon as possible.

The database contains the following sensitive information:

Your forums username
An encrypted copy of your forums password
Your email address
Any personal information you might have put in your signature/profile/etc…
Any personal information you might written on the forums (including private topics and private messages)
People primarily at risk are people whose forums password is the same as their email password or as the password they use on popular or sensitive websites. Although the passwords cannot be decrypted, they can be brute-forced (found by trial) if they are simple enough or guessed if they relate to personal information.

Out of precaution we recommend all forums users change their passwords.

While changing your passwords, please start with your email password and do not use the same password on different websites.